Saving money to Save More Children

Paying teachers in rural Uganda used to be a nightmare. This is according to Tom Oketch, Finance Manager at Save the Children, Uganda. According to Oketch the same amount of money that was spent on paying teachers’ monthly salaries, was spent on fuel, staff allowances, car maintenance and hours out of the office during salary payment times every month. These salaries are paid to teachers as part of an organizational program of providing access to free education that is much needed for primary school children in rural Uganda.

“Once a month four staff members used to drive around on rough terrain in two separate cars with thousands of dollars in cash. They drove up to 700 kilometers in remote areas to pay 150 teachers personally. This was an exercise that took these four staff members away from their core focus and out of the office for up to three days every month,” said Oketch.

“Sometimes one kilometer took more than an hour to drive. During the rainy seasons this task became even more difficult and staff were almost guaranteed to get stuck in the mud, often having to change tires or be pushed out of potholes by community members in the rain,” he added.

All this changed slightly more than a year and a half ago when the organisation decided to switch to Beyonic’s mobile money platform.

Saving time and money to help more vulnerable children

Oketch said that switching to Beyonic’s mobile money platform meant saving a whopping 70% of existing monthly operational costs.

“With the extra $950 we save in operational costs per month we can literally pay 10 extra teachers per month to provide education to dozens of vulnerable children.

“Due to this saving we are in the process of recruiting more qualified teachers to run schools. This is expected to create more quality output.”

He said that the organization was saving money through a radical reduction in the cost of paying teachers’ salaries in his organization.

According to Oketch switching to the platform had a positive impact on the entire staff culture of Save the Children.

“In 2014, I had to dismiss nine staff members owing to fraudulent practices. Many temptations came with handling thousands of dollars in cash monthly for payments. Having to dismiss so many people had a negative impact on our organizational culture,” said Oketch.

According to him only one person was dismissed in 2015 after the organization switched to the Beyonic platform.

“Beyonic impacted our organization overall so dramatically that we decided to roll it out to all four our regional offices throughout Ghana.”

A step up from traditional mobile money wallet platforms:

“The best about Beyonic is that it is a one-stop platform and not just another money mobile platform. Instead of paying different teachers on different mobile money platforms separately online through separate transactions, I can upload all 150 teachers’ payment details onto one document and pay all of them through a single transaction. No other existing money mobile wallet can do this,” said Oketch.

He explained how the platform assists in preventing financial mismanagement by keeping record of every payment on one platform, instead of doing multiple cash payments through different staff members.

“What used to take four people three days, now takes one person — me — less than a day every month,” he added.

Photo Credit: Michael Koch